By: Marlett Mojica

For working hard throughout the HP (Health Professions)  program, Jasmine Almanzar, Stephanie Rodriguez, Erick Romero, and Carmen Kerstiens have taken a huge step forward into their medical career.

“Initially, I’d had to get my bachelors in six years, and now, I only have to go for four years.” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez is part of the LVN (Licensed Vocational Nurse) program, and had to take a summer course at EPCC (El Paso Community College).

“The summer courses take all summer and you only have two weeks off in the end,” Rodriguez said.

Not all programs in the HP offer the summer program. Romero, and Kerstiens had to study on their own to get through the PT (Pharmacy Technician) program.

“After we graduate we take an exam to get our states certification as pharmacy technician and study drugs, drugs, a lot of drugs,” Kerstiens said.

The certificate will help students work at a pharmacy right after they graduate from high school.

“Once were pharmacy techs then we can start working at a pharmacy,” Romero said.

Almanzar is part of the EMT (Emergency Medical Technician)  program, and she had the chance to be in an ambulance to help real patients.

“I got to go on the street and help, and we’d also be in the hospital doing rotations, in labor and delivery at the ER,” Almanzar said.

Even though students will be earning their chance to work at the hospital, ambulance, etc., some are going towards a different path.

“I’m planning to be a pedestrian, so after we learned our medical terms and stuff like that, it really helped,” Almanzar said.

Romero is planning to attend a six-year program at UTEP.

“I’m planning to be pharmacist. So I’m gonna go to college to be in a six-year program at Utep and I’ll become, hopefully, to be pharmacist in six years,” Romero said.

Rodriguez plans to stay in the nursing career and was quite nervous when she started the LVN program.

“I was pretty nervous about it because I only heard stories about it with my family of what I have to deal with, but never how the schooling is,” Rodriguez said.

Now that these students have finished part of their education, some decided to give out advice for the underclassmen who are planning to be in the HP.

“You want to do your research before you take the class, because the course we have is LVN, Dental, EMT, PT, internship, and you want to research before you just decide,” Kerstiens said.